What's the difference between flippant and serious?

Flippant


Definition:

  • (a.) Of smooth, fluent, and rapid speech; speaking with ease and rapidity; having a voluble tongue; talkative.
  • (a.) Speaking fluently and confidently, without knowledge or consideration; empty; trifling; inconsiderate; pert; petulant.
  • (n.) A flippant person.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Ohler’s book may well irritate some historians; he makes flippant remarks and uses chapter titles such as “Sieg High!” and “High Hitler”.
  • (2) From flippant offensive comments about women to serious allegations of assault from those he has encountered through his relationships and career, Trump stands accused of misogyny to a degree that has not been seen in mainstream American politics for decades.
  • (3) This week, after an article in the Mail on Sunday detailed the prejudices he had expressed, Fury made what he calls flippant threats in a video interview against the journalist, Oliver Holt.
  • (4) The Zappa statue was audaciously suggested by local artists in 1992, as a slightly flippant test of their country's newfound democratic freedoms; to their surprise, the authorities called their bluff.
  • (5) Lewis, often all too ready with a flippant remark, suggested that Countrywide's highly unpopular chief executive, Angelo Mozilo, could go away and "have some fun" with the proceeds.
  • (6) However, when the remark was repeated in another newspaper, he contact the author to say that he has no reason to think Cook was murdered and put the remark down to a "flippant comment".
  • (7) As the Queens Park Rangers manager's first taste of the play-offs was a forgettable, fractious affair, the Champions League and the Championship felt worlds apart, even if Redknapp, ever ready with a flippant one-liner, pretended to disagree.
  • (8) I was 13, watching the news with my parents, and flippantly said to my dad: "When they catch that monster they should string him up."
  • (9) Flippantly, I ask, isn't the pay so low it amounts to charitable work?
  • (10) It is, for instance, a lot of work; I don't mean that flippantly.
  • (11) This professionally flippant, slyly populist voice, accepting of kitsch and able to rework it into unintentional comedy, has become the default style not only of TV reviewers but also of viewers.
  • (12) I don’t just walk away when they say they’re going to die, to end their life … It’s not a flippant exchange, but it’s not in any way a doctor-patient involvement,” he said.
  • (13) Malala's courage and dignity come through strongly in a picture that is unexpectedly relaxed, almost flippant, given the circumstances.
  • (14) Hunt said today: "I made a flippant comment which I'm sure will be carved on my epitaph.
  • (15) Reading Kelsey Osgood’s memoir How To Disappear Completely: On Modern Anorexia , I came across yet another label, wannarexia, often used by eating disorder sufferers to disparagingly describe someone who actively and flippantly seeks out an eating disorder.
  • (16) Earlier he flippantly had thanked the BBC for his opportunity.
  • (17) Flippant remarks such as those you chose to use today only serve to reinforce the gap in understanding.
  • (18) He squirms into a shrug that indicates he's being both flippant and serious.
  • (19) Miami Beach--or "God's Waiting Room" as some have flippantly named it--has an overwhelming number of elderly people living on low incomes.
  • (20) The same year, in a flippant example of the use of the technology, an American billionaire reportedly paid a cloning expert $5m to recreate his favourite pet collie.

Serious


Definition:

  • (a.) Grave in manner or disposition; earnest; thoughtful; solemn; not light, gay, or volatile.
  • (a.) Really intending what is said; being in earnest; not jesting or deceiving.
  • (a.) Important; weighty; not trifling; grave.
  • (a.) Hence, giving rise to apprehension; attended with danger; as, a serious injury.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This should not be a serious limitation to the application of the RIA in the detection of venous thrombosis.
  • (2) But the wounding charge in 2010 has become Brown's creation of a structural hole in the budget, more serious than the cyclical hit which the recession made in tax receipts, at least 4% of GDP.
  • (3) "There is a serious risk that a deal will be agreed between rich countries and tax havens that would leave poor countries out in the cold.
  • (4) Confidence is the major prerequisite for a doctor to be able to help his seriously ill patient.
  • (5) No report can be taken seriously if its authors weren’t even in Yemen to conduct investigations.” The UN team was not given permission to enter the country.
  • (6) The decline in the frequency of serious complications was primarily due to a decrease in the proportion of patients with open fractures treated with plate osteosynthesis from nearly 50% to 19%.
  • (7) Vancomycin is the antibiotic of choice for serious MRSA infections; PRPs and cephalosporins generally are not effective.
  • (8) An age- and education-matched group of women with no family history of FXS was asked to predict the seriousness of problems they might encounter were they to bear a child with a handicapping condition.
  • (9) The most serious complications following operative treatment are retained bile duct calculi (2.8%), wound infection and biliary fistulae.
  • (10) Guardian Australia reported last week that morale at the national laboratory had fallen dramatically, with one in three staff “seriously considering” leaving their jobs in the wake of the cuts.
  • (11) In case of biliary and pancreatic duct obstruction with pure pancreatic reflux, both oedema and inflammatory infiltrations were evident, whereas, in the presence of biliary reflux too, more serious histological features were detected.
  • (12) Autopsy revealed serious somatic diseases (stenosis of the ileum in two cases and brain tumor in one); their symptoms had been largely overlapped by those of anorexia nervosa.
  • (13) The above treatment is tolerated well and no serious side effects have been observed.
  • (14) This observation seriously challenges the hypothesis that SCE cancellation results as a consequence of persistence of the lesions induced by these agents.
  • (15) Earlier recognition of foul-smelling mucoid discharge on the IUD tail, or abnormal bleeding, or both, as a sign of early pelvic infection, followed by removal of the IUD and institution of appropriate antibiotic therapy, might prevent the more serious sequelae of pelvic inflammation.
  • (16) Left ventricular rupture is a serious complication of mitral valve replacement.
  • (17) Other serious complications were reservoir perforation during catheterisation in 3 and development of stones in the reservoir in 2 patients.
  • (18) For application to mammalian cells, however, two serious problems require resolution: (1), correction of TPP+ binding to intracellular constituents and (2), estimation of the considerable TPP+ accumulation in mitochondria.
  • (19) At least 1 episode of serious infection occurred in 34 of the 60 adult patients and 25 of the 30 children.
  • (20) These high Danish rates seem to reflect the true prevalence and incidence in the less serious types of progressive muscular dystrophy, probably because the Danish health system with free medical care and easy access to specialized hospital departments makes it possible to identify all cases of progressive muscular dystrophy.